Winterbound, Part 8 - Pick

 Kimo held his stomach and started to wail quietly. 

"Are these the berries you ate? They are not purple," said Tiu.

Kimo raised his head from the mattress and looked. "Yes, those are the same. They seemed purple, it was already pretty dark when I found them."

"Oh Kimo, learn your plants. This fruit is called cow's udder and it is fairly easy to recognise because it looks like, well, you see," Tiu waved the branch with a dozen bright yellow odd-shaped fruit on it. "It is poisonous and that's why they make cockroach repellent out of it."

Kimo's wailing got worse.

"But don't worry. They are not too toxic and because you are not dead yet, you'll be fine soon enough. Let me do a healing spell on you."

"I- I am going to be fine? I could have died?" Kimo asked quietly, partly revealed, partly even more scared.

"Don't worry, you'll be fine," Tiu said in a comforting tone and held her hand on his shoulder.

A deep sigh of relief burst out and Kimo started sobbing. "I am sorry, I didn't think."

"Hey, Kimo, it's all right. We are here to help you," said Madiza while Tiu moved her hands above him and hummed a spell. "We will stay here and take care of you until you are better. We are too far from the town to take you back home, anyway."

Anaya didn't say anything. She thought that it was irresponsible to eat unknown fruit, but there was no point saying that again, as he clearly had learnt his lesson. Also, she noticed that she felt pity for the annoying boy. 

"Thank you. You are my best friends," he said sympathetically.

Tiu glanced at Anaya and they exchanged surprised looks, but neither knew how to respond to that.

Anaya pushed these thoughts aside and said instead: "Well, while we are here, let's spend the time by picking some edible fruit. It is good to have a good stock with us so that we have more time for paddling during the next days.

"That's a good idea," Madiza said. "Tiu should stay here with Kimo and do her healing magic, while we can go to the forest."

So they emptied two of their bags into the canoe and disappeared into the thick scrub. Tiu continued her spell, and Kimo's face slowly calmed down as the worst stomach pain gradually alleviated. This brought a small bit of his curiosity back.

"Where did you learn all those spells?"

"Well, from here and there. My aunt was a healer, so she taught me this painkiller spell. She got me interested in this in the first place. But the school has a great library, so you can learn a lot from the books, too."

"Do they teach them in school? I'd like to learn some magic, too."

"Well, not really, only some basic stuff. They think that magic is only for priests and the like, and the regular folks should not be too skillful in magic. My aunt thought otherwise, and so do I."

"Can you teach me a spell? Please?" said Kimo enthusiastically, and this thought seemed to make him forget the pain altogether.

Tiu thought for a while. "Okay, I'll teach you the knot test spell. You may find it pretty handy, and it is quite easy to learn for a beginner."

"Can I then make the toughest knots to tie, I dunno, like when capturing dragons?"

Tiu laughed. "No, but it's good when you practice those knots. It loosens a knot if it is poorly made. So if the knot stays tight, you have made it right." After a short silence, Tiu suddenly thought something and said in a schoolmaster tone: "And you, my boy, are not allowed to even think about capturing a dragon. If you ever tried something that foolish, it might kill you with a swing of a tail."

"Bah," groaned Kimo and well silent for a long while. Tiu suddenly realised her authority over him. He was a just a small kid who believed that something is forbidden when someone older said it's forbidden. She was also a bit uncertain whether he was disappointed because he had thought that he would actually capture the dragon or that his fantasy about that was now forbidden. Probably he didn't know it either.

-- x--

The next morning Kimo was again his overenthusiastic self, and they had canoes full of nuts and fruit so that they did not need to worry about food for at least a week. The sun was warming the air, and birds were chirping and singing and croaking in the shadows of the foliage. So, despite a delay, they were pretty good off right now. 

They pushed the canoes to the slowly moving stream and started another day toward the peak of the White Mountain. They had paddled only half an hour or so, when Kimo interrupted the silence.

"I think we should pick the left branch."

"What, why?" said Anaya. "That does not lead to the White Mountain."

"Maybe the dragon does not live there," he simply replied.

"Maybe not, but maybe it does. That's where most of the snow is anyways. All the other mountains are lower, and most have no snow at all," argued Anaya.

"Yeah, but the dragon came from the left."

"What? How could you possibly know that?" snapped Madiza.

"Well, during the first days, there was snow and frost in most places, but then it got narrower, like a trail along the river bank. So the forest froze when the dragon flew above it."

"Well yeah, but all the snow has melted away now. So we should just go to the direction of the trail, which is, as we have seen, toward the White Mountain," said Madiza.

"No, the trail is still there," argued Kimo. "There were brown frostbitten leaves on the trees until we passed the river branch to the left. Now all the leaves look fine. The dragon did not go this way."

They stopped paddling and looked around up and down the river banks. He was right, there were no signs of frostbite any more. But were there before? No one except Kimo had paid attention to that.

"Okay, where did you learn that? Is that one of the stories of Zuzun, again?" asked Anaya.

"No, I figured that out myself," said Kimo.

The girls looked at each other for a while.

"Well, the left branch is just around the corner. If Kimo happens for some reason to be right, it is easy to find out right now. Let's go back and check," said Tiu and turned her canoe around.

Madiza shrugged her shoulders as a sign of indifference, so Anaya turned their canoe around as well. They paddled back for a while and then headed toward the much smaller left branch. Its water was cooler and clearer than in the main branch, but that didn't prove anything and they were not sure what to make out of it.

But as they paddled along, they saw that Kimo had indeed been right. The frostbites that had disappeared from the main branch were clearly visible here. They had been about to lose the track, but now they had a clear mark that they knew they should follow.

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The next topic is Billow.